I’m an attorney, former marketing executive and publisher who has worked at Time, Scholastic, Playboy and several top ad agencies. For the past 15 years I’ve been an entrepreneur who has started and run several technology-based media companies – some successful, some not. I also the co-author of 7 books – including 3 best-sellers – and numerous articles. I’ve taught at Fordham, NYU and the Stanford Publishing Program; served on the Boards of the United States Naval Institute and the pediatric literacy program Reach Out and Read; and co-chaired the Clinton White House literacy task force the Prescription for Reading Partnership. I attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated from Brown University and New York Law School. My most recent book – which is a completely new version of my first best-seller – is about college admissions: Getting In!

The Three Biggest Lies in College Admission

Parrish Hall at the center of the Swarthmore College campus. Picture taken by me during Ride the Tide, 2006. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“The check is in the mail. I gave at the office. And …”

There are too many bad jokes that begin, “The three biggest lies are…”

What is happening in college admission, however, is no joke. Three big lies are gaining traction with families as they embark on this year’s tougher-than-ever college admission sweepstakes. Believing some of these lies will cost families money. Others can make the difference between an acceptance and a rejection.

There are three big lies making the rounds:

Standardized test (SAT and ACT) scores are less and less important.

Asking for financial aid won’t have an impact on the admission decision; and

There is a level playing field in college admissions.

So what’s the truth behind these misperceptions?

Lie #1: Standardized Tests are Less and Less Important

Today, colleges are relying on standardized test scores when making admissions decisions to a far larger degree than they have in years. One reason is that the number of applications at most top colleges is soaring. That’s not because there are more 18 year-olds graduating from high school. It is because more kids are each applying to more colleges. And with little increase in the size of admission staffs at most colleges, schools are using SAT and ACT scores to make a fast, easy cut of the applicant pool.

Of course, no college is going to admit this. Colleges love a big applicant pool; not just to craft a more attractive class, but to show the ranking services just how selective they are. (In the perverse rankings world, more rejections equal a higher ranking.) Instead, colleges are using several forms of numbers subterfuge to obfuscate what is really going on.

The Three Card Monte Test Score Range – Almost every college publishes the range of SAT scores that kids in the last entering class achieved. The schools call this the 25th to 75th percentile range. In other words, 50% of last year’s entering class had scores within this range.

So if a kid sees a school’s 25th-75th range as 1280 to 1430, the student might reasonable think that their 1300 SAT score gives them a fair shot at admission. Wrong. In reality, the bottom 25% (below 1280) is reserved for the school’s “special interests”: athletes, students of color, development (big donors.) “To have a real shot,” says Muska “you really have to be at the upper end of that range.”

For example, Vanderbilt reports its 25-75 SAT range as 1380 – 1550. In reality, most of its unhooked admittees had SAT scores above 1500.

Score choice and SuperScore – Score Choice refers to your sending your highest scores – from among the several times you took the SAT or ACT – to a college. SuperScore refers to the school considering just your highest score. Most colleges explain their policy on their website. Unfortunately, students aren’t the only ones who benefit from these beneficent policies; the colleges do too. Colleges like to report higher test scores for a very simple reason: it raises their ranking!

Test Optional Doesn’t Always Mean Test Optional – A number of very good colleges have a “test optional” policy. For kids who have good grades but test-anxiety, that can be a real blessing. Unfortunately, for athletes applying to NESCAC (“Little Ivy” schools like Williams, Amherst, and Middlebury) and Patriot league schools, that option doesn’t really exist. The athletic scholarship rules of those conferences require the colleges to report test scores.

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I’m looking forward to the destruction of this fraud. The growth of online education is startling.

Unfortunately for the United States, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint have decided not to build fiber optic to the house. Fortunately, Google may accelerate its Kansas City ultra high speed internet expansion.

Then, high definition lectures from the best, to every student in America.

oh no- listen, if it took you 5.5 years to get your undergraduate degree, please don’t bother with law school. Unless you got in to a top-tier (read Ivy League) or got a full ride scholarship somewhere else, please, please, please don’t do this. It won’t give you the job you’re expecting. If you are taking out loans, it’ll take you forever to pay them back. Don’t believe the lies they’re telling you about how much their graduates make and how many of them are employed. Do some research on this first!

Biggest lies of California’s public University. The public’s University of California harvests family savings, Alumni donations, supporter’s money and taxes. Cal. ranked #1 public university total academic cost (resident) as a result of the Provost’s, Chancellor’s ‘charge resident’s higher tuition’. UCB tuition is rising faster than other universities.

Cal ranked # 2 nationally in faculty earning potential. Spending on salaries increased 29% in last six years. Believe it: Harvard College less costly.

Birgeneau ($450,000) Breslauer ($306,000) like to blame the politicians, since they stopped giving them their entitled funding. The ‘charge instate students higher tuition’ skyrocketed fees by an average 14% per year from 2006 to 2011 academic years. If they had allowed fees to rise at the same rate of inflation over past 10 years fees would still be in reach of middle income students. Breslauer Birgeneau increase disparities in higher education, defeat the promise of equality of opportunity, and create a less-educated work force.

UCB is to maximize access to the widest number of residence at a reasonable cost. Birgeneau Breslauer’s ‘charge Californians higher tuition’ denies middle income families the transformative value of Cal.

There is, to me at least, another lie that is much more important than the 3 you have listed.

Currently there are over 700,000 international students in the US. Colleges and universities are at this very moment jetting to the four corners of the world to enroll the best and brightest from around the world. These students provide much needed skills and, perhaps more importantly, much needed cash as they pay full freight at virtually every school in the US.

On the other hand, there are only 35,000 work visas issued each year to international applicants. It does not take a mathematician to see we are, at the very least, misleading those students who come here to study and then pursue the American Dream. Instead of letting these students fill open positions at Google (Americans are not interested in majoring in math and science fields to the degree needed to fill these jobs), or become the next Shahid khan, we are sending them back home.

There they may have the same jobs that would have been in the US off-shored to them or they may not find employment at all and so have wasted $250,000 dollars. In either case, the US loses. Without people to fill jobs, the US slows its economy. Sending people back home jobless increases the level of anger and frustration at the US. They feel cheated. And I think they have a right to feel this way. No one is telling them the chances of staying in the US grow smaller by the year. While the percentage of international students being offered places at schools skyrockets, the number of spaces for jobs has not. One bit. And so I think it fair to say schools are looking at money and the bottom line ahead of the interests of the international students and parents.

Therefore, if they go abroad, admission officers should include information about the bleak chances of any opportunity to stay in what was once a place that welcomed people to contribute to the fabric of our society.

An international PhD student at IU, Bloomington, Julide Etem, has just completed a documentary film on just this topic. In fact it was mentioned in Forbes last week. it will be premiered at the Virginia Film Festival in early November.

Here is the link to the trailer. Anyone who cares about the future economic growth of the US should watch it. And admission officers might think about showing it to all the international students they are showering with glossy brochures and promises of great things to come in their future.

I agree colleges shouldn’t rip-off international students, but Americans should get the college opportunities first. Guess you don’t really care we have an immigration problem in America, do you? While we are at it, let’s get rid of the H1-B visa, too. All that does is bring in “cheap” labor and depress wages.

With this many problems facing both domestic and international students, there is a need to take action. Julide Etem’s film is an example of how we can raise awareness of these issues of higher education. If you could, show some support for the film. Check out the trailer and visit the facebook page for more information.

Lie #4 – Go to Harvard and you’ll end up being one of the elite. Yeah, you’ll probably make more than someone going to many state colleges. Oh, please, give me a break. The “elite” have something you don’t–the connections to remain in the elite. The sheepskin really has little to do with it. Networking is always the advantage.